As a semiconductor circuit pattern becomes more and more miniaturized, the resolution of an exposure device is approaching the limit, making it more and more difficult to form a pattern on a wafer as designed. The generation frequency of systematic defects, such as a line width deviation from a design value or a deformed tip shape, increases. Because these systematic defects are generated in any of all dies, it is difficult to detect them in the conventional die-to-die (or abbreviated to D2D) inspection that compares between the data on the neighboring dies. Therefore, there is an increased need for the die-to-database (or abbreviated to D2DB) inspection that compares data on a die with design data.
For a comparison between various types of data such as between a real image and design data, JP-A-2006-11270 (Patent Literature 1) discloses “a method for generating an image, which is generated from design data by simulating an imaged real image, for use as a reference image”.